I did something incredibly liberating yesterday. I fired my agent. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a good agent or anything like that. She was actually very nice and was 100% behind FUTUREPROOF. But when you have a book that is self-published such as FUTUREPROOF is, you are put in a very unique position in that, while you are trying to get your book out there, trying to get people to buy and read it, trying to get buzz going, you are also trying to not get TOO much buzz going, as it leaves publishing houses with little room to promote your book once they eventually (hopefully) pick it up. So, since almost exactly three months ago, when I first signed with this agent, I have been straddling the fine line between publicizing the book too much and not enough. Then, as so often happens with me, I had a revelation, and decided that this route was no longer one I was willing to continue down. But let me start from the beginning.

Starting in September of last year, I began contacting reviewers on Amazon as a way to hopefully get people to read a free excerpt of my novel. If they liked it, I asked that they say so in the guestbook section of my website. No pressure. In this I way I hoped to garner a bunch of reader support, and therefore make the prospect of actually being picked up and published by a house that much more inviting to the publishers and agents which every writer knows is the end-all be-all of writing. I mean, how better to sell a product to a company that to demonstrate that it already has a built-in cusotmer base?

The “Grand Experiment” was an unqualified success. Within little more than a month I had gotten over 200 positive reviews from Amazon readers and reviewers, and all based on the 100 page excerpt of FUTUREPROOF I sent out. Soon, the clamor for the rest of the book was so great that I decided to go the self-publishing route. I figured, the book as a whole would sell itself just as well if not better than the first 100 pages did, and solidify for life the readers who had so strongly supported it in the first place.

In January of this year, FUTUREPROOF was finally ready for publication via Lulu.com, a front-runner in the exploding self-publishing world. People started buying and talking about it. It was routinely ranked higher in sales on Amazon than other books published through traditional means by already-established authors. I got this Myspace account and met many more authors (I’d already met James Frey, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and had my book edited by Dan Pope). Many of these authors agreed to chat on my site, as part of my goal to not only find success as an author, but also to strengthen the voices of ALL authors, who, even after being traditionally published still face the uphill battle of generating buzz and keeping it going. And yet, despite the fact that literally hundreds of readers and many already-published authors were reading and supporting FUTUREPROOF, including the legendary Jay McInerney, I was still getting nowhere in my quest to get FUTUREPROOF published by a mainstream publisher. So I started thinking. I started thinking real hard.

I thought to myself, “What’s the difference between a self-published book and a book published by a mainstream publisher?” Well, I can only think of two things.1) A book published by a house is generally given the benefit of the doubt as to its literary value, whereas P.O.D. and self-published books are widely thought of “vanity” projects and otherwise completely disposable, because if they had that much worth, then why wouldn’t they be published by a house? As books like Will Clarke’s and other P.O.D. successes can attest, there are definitely worthy books that have been over-looked by the mainstream presses, only to be picked up after the authors proved themselves through self-publishing. And blogs like PODDY MOUTH are proving this fact on a daily basis. Publishers are making news today for ignominious reasons, such as the latest debacle involving the now-disgraced Kavya Viswanathan. So what does that say to the reading public at large when a 17 year old Harvard student is given the largest advance for an unpublished author in publishing history and her book is not only put together by a book packager, but plagiarised on top of it? And books like FUTUREPROOF are left to die on the vine.

Secondly, a book published by a maintream publisher generally has a better chance of getting publicity just through the fact that most chain bookstores won’t carry self-published books, and most major newspapers won’t review self-published books. So how to change this? Well, what if somebody decided to forgo mainstream publishing all together, and put all his efforts into taking his P.O.D. book and publicizing it through the same outlets?

<!– D([“mb”,”What this would take is some big time backing from other well-knownauthors (such as James Frey and Josh Kilmer-Purcell and maybe even JayMcInerney and Chuck Palahniuk), as well as a good bit of corporatesponsorship, say from Lulu itself. If I was to somehow get 2,500copies of futureproof into the hands of willing newspaper bookreviewers and bookstore acquisitions people all across the country,then had a big name such as James to back this as the next phase inthe long history of publishing, I think that this could not only makeLulu the biggest name in publishing this year, but would substantiallychange publishing at we know forever.

I\’ve had an agent shopping futureproof for the last three months andwhile we have had some near successes, in the end the book has justnot been able to garner the support it needs from them, and definitelynot on the level of success that I have had with other (published)writers and most especially with readers. Every week new polls comeout regarding president Bush\’s popularity, and these polls say that,based on the opinions of 1,200 or so people, he has incredibly lowapproval ratings nationwide. This is how polling works. They take across-section of people, ask them how they feel, and based on theanswers from that incredibly small percentage of people, the pollersproject how the entire nation of 280 million people feel. Based onthat assumption, that a small cross-section can realistically reflectthe common sense on a matter, futureproof will have raging success–ifit can just get its name out there.

So I\’m considering (VERY seriously) firing my agent and going at thisfull-force. It\’s one thing to find success, but a completely differentanimal altogether to change things. I want to change things. I wantfutureproof to have the audience it deserves. What can Lulu do to makethis happen, to change everything as it commonly is known? I can tellyou this much, if we can make this work, get buzz going, this willmake (Book Section) headlines across the country. And Lulu will be ahuge beneficiary of the profits.

Get back to me.

Talk soon.

“,1]);

//–>What this would take is some big time backing (which FUTUREPROOF has) from other well-known authors (such as James Frey and Josh Kilmer-Purcell and maybe even Jay McInerney and Chuck Palahniuk), as well as a good bit of corporate sponsorship. If I was to somehow get 2,500 copies of futureproof into the hands of willing newspaper book reviewers and bookstore acquisitions people all across the country, then had a big name such as James to back this as the next phase in the long history of publishing, I think that this could not only make Lulu the biggest name in publishing this year, but would substantially change publishing at we know it forever.

Every week new polls come out regarding president Bush’s popularity, and these polls say that, based on the opinions of 1,200 or so people, he has incredibly low approval ratings nationwide. This is how polling works. They take a cross-section of people, ask them how they feel, and based on the answers from that incredibly small percentage of people, the pollers project how the entire nation of 280 million people feel. Based on that assumption, that a small cross-section can realistically reflect the common sense on a matter, FUTUREPROOF will have raging success–if it can just get its name out there.

It’s one thing to find success, but a completely different animal altogether to change things. I want to change things. I want FUTUREPROOF to have the audience it deserves. So I’ve fired my agent and have to decided to never look back. I’ve gotten far too many rave reviews from so many different sources (only 4 or 5 being from blood relatives 😉 that I know–I KNOW–that this book has an audience. And the best way to find FUTUREPROOF’s audience is to focus on getting the word out.

I’ll be starting a contest sometime Thursday, offering signed copies of my book, as well as t-shirts and signed posters. Stay tuned. This is only the beginning.

11 responses to “FUTUREPROOF: A Short History”

I think that you’re really on to something. If anything, just by taking an alternate route to promoting Futureproof, YOU will create a buzz which will in turn create a buzz for Futureproof. The book will sell itself. It is one of those rare books that has you still thinking about it long after you read it. Good luck to you. Sounds like you’re headed in the right direction. Let me know if I can be of any help.

As Colleen pointed out, this will create a buzz. When doors keep getting slammed in your face, you find a window. Or, as I’m trying to do, smash down the entire goddam wall. Basically, it comes down to getting tired of being at the mercy of these houses. In the 7 months I’ve been promoting FP, a grand total of about 10 people have given me negative feedback on the book’s content–and most of those were prudish about the story itself, not at all regarding whether or not it had literary value. So–when you keep getting one kind of response from readers and other writers: that your shit is great, and the feedback you get from countless agents and houses is a form rejection letter, it tends to put you off to the whole enterprise all together. Again, this is nothing against my agent, who I feel is very capable. She did, after all, believe in futureproof enough to sign me. Rather, this is my one shot at trying to break through, and I’ll be god damned if I’m going to waste it on a bunch of houses who for some reason can’t see what their contingents are all telling them. Simple as that. Now it’s on my terms.

I still think that you are on the right track. I think that the book is great as is or I wouldn’t even be wasting my time writing this. This is your window of opportunity, so I say go for it. To find another agent or to change the book to give it a “Cambridge Spin” would take away from it and put you back to square one. The rawness of the book is what makes it so real. Yes its intense but so is addiction. You can’t have one without the other. To “soften” it would take away from the whole thing. This book can help the addict as well as be a learning tool for the blinded parent that doesnt realize how fast paced the world really is. And if you are neither of the addict or the nieve parent, it is STILL a great book……..

Would NEVER take away the rawness. Ever. Even if they said that was why it hasn’t been picked up yet. I mean, shit, I can’t compromise my prnciples until at least the third or fourth book, when I’ve officially sold out and lost my “edge”. 🙂

Hey, Frank, here’s a plan. Write those second, third and fourth books now. Sell out. Lose your edge. But don’t offer them for pubclication yet – just chuck them all in the bottom drawer. Your fifth book will be so mainstream and universally inoffensive it will make Nora Roberts look like a surrealist crack addict. Random House will publish it immediately. Massive sales will ensue. Then follow it up with the slightly edgier fourth novel you wrote, then the even edgier third novel, then the second, working your way finally back to FUTUREPROOF. By the time you get there you’ll have a massive audience that you’ve progressively educated, whose brains you’ve cunningly retrofitted so that – at last – they know good fucking shit when they read it.

Calm, the upside is you made a difference–and THAT makes all the difference. Plus, futureproof has an audience, no question. It’s finding them and letting them know about FP’s existence that presents the biggest problem. But we’re working on it.

Frank, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I think you need to re-hire your agent. I was talking to a friend today who used to be a non-fiction editor at Random House here in Sydney, Australia. She told me a sobering little tale about representation. Her office would receive dozens of unsolicited manuscripts from unrepresented writers every week. And you know what she told me? They didn’t read them. They didn’t have the time. But once a month, they’d pile all the recently arrived manuscripts onto the table in the boardroom. Then all the editorial staff would come in – senior, junior, fiction, non-fiction, whoever. They’d all walk around the table and each pick up a manuscript, open it randomly to any page, and read a paragraph. If nothing in that paragraph grabbed them and made them want to read on, they’d throw the manuscript on the floor. Then they’d pick up another one, and go through the same process until all of the manuscripts were on the floor. About once every six months, someone would find something they wanted to read a little more of and take it back to their desk. But mostly, everything ended up on the floor. The rejection letters were then printed out and the manuscripts tossed in the recycling bin.

That’s what happens when you’re not represented. That’s why you receive rejection letters. It’s not that your work is crap – it’s that publishers don’t have the time to consider everything that comes across their desks, especially when they didn’t invite you to submit it. In most cases, it’s likely they haven’t even read the book they’re rejecting. Is this unfair? Completely. But saying that doesn’t change anything. Represented writers at least have the privilege of getting the first three chapters of their manuscript read by a junior fiction editor. It’s no guarantee they’ll buy it, of course. But it at least gives your work a fighting chance. You owe it to yourself, to your work, to give it that chance.

Maybe I’m telling you stuff you already know. But I thought I should mention it anyway.

Steve, I love you man, but you’re missing the whole point. When I said I fired my agent, I didn’t mean to imply that I was going to keep trying to get picked up by a house without one. I meant I was going to discontinue the quest to get published traditionally all together. I meant that I, with your help, was turning the focus to making futureproof the biggest self-published book ever printed. THAT is the new focus. We’re going to prove that, using only good, old fashioned word-of-mouth and the enthusiasm from you guys, the discerning reader, that self-publishing is a viable option for finding and maintaining a fiercely loyal readership.